On Mon, 5 Apr 2004 05:22:08 +0000 (UTC), spam_bait101{at}yahoo.com (sb)
wrote:

>How come mammals that live in green forests aren't green (for camouflage) ?

This is one more example of how "intelligent design" has failed.
Mammals simply don't know how to make a green pigment.

I believe that green color in animals is usually a structural color
caused by light interference in a regular crystalline array, rather
than a pigment color caused by light absorbing compound.
Chromatophore cells in fish and amphibian and reptilian skin and
feathers can all produce structural colors, but mammals can't do this
in hair.

Melanin is, of course, the most important mammalian pigment and it
just doesn't get green. Other pigments are derived from carotenoid
chemicals we get by eating plants.  Unfortunately, the green
chlorophyll we also get by eating plants breaks apart during digestion
and loses its green color.

You also have to consider that  green forests are really largely brown
where mammals are found -- along the branches and trunks of the trees
or at ground level.  Even the birds that nest and feed in the leaf
canopy are seldom green.
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